-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- In travels this week -- to Boston , Chicago , New York -- friends and strangers alike have said the same thing : They are turned off and tuned out of the sequestration mess in Washington . To a person , they are sick of the antics of those to whom they have entrusted enormous power .

In times past , a president has usually risen to the demands of leadership when a Congress has stubbornly resisted tough choices , such as the upcoming mandatory budget cuts that are called sequestration .

That 's what Lyndon Johnson did in persuading key Republicans to help pass the civil rights bills of 1964 and 1965 . And that 's what Bill Clinton did in working with a Republican House led by Newt Gingrich . People forget how hostile House Republicans were to Clinton -- hell , they impeached him -- but he nonetheless worked with them to pass four straight balanced budgets and an overhaul of welfare .

Obama signs order activating `` dumb '' budget cuts

In other times , Congress has displayed serious leadership when a president has lost his way . That 's what Congress did to curtail overseas military ventures after two presidents in a row got us into a quagmire in Vietnam . And that 's what top congressmen like Sam Ervin and Howard Baker did when Richard Nixon went off the tracks in Watergate .

But today , we have a rare moment when both Congress and the president are retreating from their responsibilities . It 's hard to recall a time when we were so leaderless .

One of the foremost duties of Congress is to pass a budget : It has failed for four straight years . Republicans , especially in the House , have continually refused to meet the White House halfway . Meanwhile , a president who promised to be a solution has become part of the problem . Ever since his re-election , Barack Obama has seemed more intent on campaigning than governing .

A new Washington Post/Pew poll gives some measure of how the public is turning away . Only one in four Americans is following news of the sequester . And as Chris Cillizza and Aaron Blake wrote in Tuesday 's Post , `` Not only are most people paying very little attention to the sequester , they also have only the faintest sense of what it would do . Fewer than one in five , or 18 % , in the Post-Pew poll say they understand ` very well ' what would happen if the sequester went into effect . ''

Cillizza and Blake argue that far more people paid attention to the fiscal cliff because their taxes might go up . Fair enough , but in my conversations , people were mostly fed up with the soap opera .

What to do ?

Last weekend in Italy , voters were so disgusted with their politicians that an upstart political movement led by a political comedian won the most votes of any single party . Is it time to draft Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert ?

Perhaps , but in the meantime , the president and the Congress have one solemn and urgent responsibility : Having created this mess , they must -- stress must -- work together to minimize the disruptions and hardships that they are promising will happen . It is insane that a series of cuts that represent only 2.5 % of all federal spending and 5 % of the budgets of most federal agencies will be allowed -- according to the administration -- to create havoc with airplane flights , bring grinding slowdowns to meat inspections , force an aircraft carrier to stay in port ... the litany goes on .

To anyone who has been through numerous short shutdowns of government in the past , this sounds suspiciously like the `` Washington Monument syndrome '' : the tendency of federal bureaucrats faced with budget cuts to shut down the most visible services first , causing screams and forcing the cuts to be rescinded .

Administration spokesmen say their hands are tied by the sequestration law because it requires even , across-the-board cuts . But if that is the case , change the law . Everyone knows it is a stupid piece of legislation . Fortunately , some senators on both sides of the aisle -- Republican Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma and Democrat Barbara Mikuski of Maryland among them -- are working on legislation that would give the administration flexibility in making the cuts so that disruptions can be kept as small as possible .

So far , the White House and Majority Leader Harry Reid are saying no . The White House has made the argument that minimizing the effects would make people too complacent about what comes from reducing spending . In reality , what they are trying to do is to make Republicans look so bad that they will cave in . This is a terrible way to govern : Washington politicians should not turn citizens into suffering pawns in order to get their way .

Meanwhile , Republicans like John McCain are objecting that such a correction to the sequestration law would cede too much power to the president . The concern about excessive power is legitimate , but surely a way can be found so that the White House and Congress would share power and any other arrangements be strictly limited in time .

Perhaps , if wisdom once again rears its head , this mess will be so awful the president and Congress will get back to the bargaining table and come up with a long-term solution . But in the meantime , Obama and Congress have a duty to lead -- and that means to pass a bill that will minimize disruption and pain .

By the way , speaking of comedians as politicians , Al Franken has turned out to be a pretty darn good senator .

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of David Gergen .

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David Gergen says everyone he talks to is turned off by mandatory budget cut mess

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Gergen : We are leaderless ; neither Congress nor president is taking responsibility

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Most Americans have no idea of what `` sequestration '' means or what it will do , he says

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Gergen : All sides are using this as a political scare tactic ; they have a duty to pass a bill